Relax - Don't Do It - A Tom Hiddleston Multi-Chapter Fanfiction
by sherekahnsgirl
Summary: Tom gets drunk at a party and goes to the kitchen to find the woman who's catered it for Luke, who is also a good friend that he'd like to be more than that. Smut ensues. Mildly Dominant Tom, Erotica, Oral Sex, Slight Anal, Fluff, A bit of angst about body issues.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: 18+

NSFW

Not my usual.

Eh, just something stoopid that came to me a couple weeks ago.

Supposed to be a one shot, but there was clamoring for more.

My hands were elbow deep in dishwater, wearing those ugly, neon yellow dishwashing gloves while the jam packed dishwasher hummed happily beside me. Luckily, this was pretty much the end of my part of the evening. Luke had asked me to cook some of his favorite things for a small party he was throwing and it seemed as if everything had gone over really well.

I was in the middle of the washing up when someone burst through the door. I barely looked up from the task at hand until I heard him say, "There's my girl! I didn't realize he had you chained to the sink like Cinderella or I'd've come in here to rescue you earlier. I've been looking for you all night."

An unbidden - frankly unwelcome - warmth suffused my body. Tom. Something within me both relaxed and tightened at the same time. I'd wondered where he was, too, not that I would ever say anything like that to him. The man had a healthy enough ego; he didn't need me to confess to him that I'd been waiting to see him all night, too - even if that _was_ the bare truth of it.

But I couldn't stop a huge, idiotic grin from spreading across my face at his words, part of me wishing fervently that I really _was_ his girl, but the other parts - louder, more insistent parts - were equally terrified of that prospect.

"Hi, Tom!" _How original._ Any tween fangirl could have said that to him, and probably in a less pathetic tone. I rolled my eyes at myself but at the same time, I couldn't stop myself from turning as much as the dishwater would allow to drink him in in his - of course - ridiculously gorgeous blue suit covering his ridiculously gorgeous self - longish, ginger hair, that beard that made me want to run my hand over his jaw just to feel the texture of it against my sensitive palms - was it soft like his hair was sure to be or coarse, like his I'd imagined his baker's dozen chest hairs were? - and those almost painfully vivid eyes, that just this minute settled - with all of the considerable weight of his singular attention - on me.

Wearing a beauteous smile that put my brainless one to shame, he came to stand entirely too close to me for my comfort, crossing his arms over his impressive chest and leaning his hip against the sink, so close his all too noticeable bulge was pressing against _my_ hip, and I could feel my lower body contract at that stark realization.

Uncharacteristically nervous around him - as always - I felt the urgent need to say something as he stared down at me. "I can't hug or kiss you 'cause my hands are otherwise occupied, but feel free to do either - or both," I couldn't resist adding, knowing full well that he'd feel completely free to do exactly that.

Only I didn't realize to what extent he was going to take my invitation or I would probably never have issued it.

 _Probably._

He levered himself languidly away from the counter and came to stand very close behind me, so that I was pressed against the counter and effectively trapped by his presence behind me. Those magnificently long arms wrapped firmly around me, coming to rest just _barely_ beneath my breasts, making my nipples peak immediately just from their close proximity - and pulling me even further back to plaster me to him. His mouth was at my ear and I could smell the Jameson on his breath, along with strong hints of apple and cinnamon - he must've had one of my tarts.

"You smell luscious," he rumbled into my ear as he nuzzled it, then leaned down just a tad to kiss the spot just behind it, making me shiver in his arms and drop the saucer I had just been washing into the soapy water. "What scent are you wearing?"

"Uh . . . Dawn Dishwashing Liquid?" I quipped, brainless enough from the way he was touching me that I couldn't come up with the name of the perfume I'd put on before the party if he held a gun to my head - instead of his loaded cock to the small of my back.

He gave me no choice but to follow the dictates of those sure hands as he turned me around, so close that I couldn't help but feel the swell of his desire behind the fly of his suit pants as it continued to press urgently into me, nudging my tummy quite insistently.

I held my useless hands out, well away from the both of us as they dripped onto the otherwise spotless floor. "Tom, stop that! I don't want to get you wet -"

I barely recognized the deep, raspy bass in which he answered, nose pressed to mine, so close our eyelashes were practically colliding, "I _definitely_ can't say the same thing, love."

If my face got any hotter it was going to burst into flames.

And then he did it - what he'd been threatening to do for a while now, teasing me with it, mentioning it when it was sure to make me blush, promising me in Loki's voice as he held tight to my hand while we were saying goodbye each time, not allowing me to reclaim it until he'd said what he wanted to - that one day he wasn't going to allow himself to consider what I'd _said_ I wanted - an affectionate but platonic relationship with him - and instead he was going to do what he _thought_ I wanted and kiss me until my clothes melted right off me.

It was more than a promise and only slightly less than a threat, and it looked as if he was going to make good on it right now.

One arm wrapped itself around my waist - insurance against the idea that I might try to fight him or put up any kind of a struggle - his other hand - large but infinitely gentle - came up to capture my chin, refusing to allow me to continue staring at some innocuous spot on the floor but tenderly raising it so that my eyes melded together at the very same moment our lips did the same thing.

The effect was electrifying.

It was as if I'd never been kissed before - it was totally due to the fact that it was _him_ and the newness of it, the sharp relief that was his lips slanting slowly across mine, which blossomed beneath tender pressure and were rewarded by the slow, steady rise of his palms up my sides until they hovered above but didn't rest on breasts that should have been covered by a bra, but I'd been running late and I hadn't bothered, completely forgetting about my overly affectionate friend.

Or . . . maybe not forgetting, quite . . .

Removing his hands and noting with a soft smile how I mewled, he murmured against my lips as he nipped and nibbled at them. "Do you want me to touch you?"

Completely unable to reign in the very primitive desires this man stirred in my mind - much less in my person - I sighed, "Holy bloody fucking Mother of God, please, _yes!_ "

He smiled at my unbridled enthusiasm, but it was a tight one, one that revealed just how far gone he was himself.

I was still holding my hands well away from him, not wanting to drop sudsy water on his as always impeccable suit, but when those sure palms slipped down over the front of my pretty cotton peasant blouse then up beneath it, the material pooling at his wrists as he stared directly into my eyes, those startlingly blue ones of his widening when, at last, he took full possession of that vulnerable flesh, his touch just right gentle-firm as my eyes fluttered shut on a deep, soft groan.

Suddenly, a particularly loud voice floated through the door, jarring the both of us and reminding us that - despite how private our little hideaway seemed - there was a party going on just outside its walls.

"Screw this," Tom said, tugging my gloves off then grabbing my hand to pull me into what I knew was the pantry. I already knew it had a lock on the outside of the door, but I hadn't noticed there was one on the _inside_ until Tom followed me through it then turned to throw the bolt home before rounding on me, his chin down, eyes so intently locked on me that I took a step back, mirroring his steps forward as he stalked me into the dark recesses of the big room.

I knew I was going to run into a wall of neatly shelved canned goods at any moment and so did he, so I simply stopped backing up and let him run right into me. What the hell was I running from, anyway? The man was everlastingly beautiful - he couldn't be ugly if he tried. I practically came in my pants every time I so much as saw him - which was becoming more and more frequent the closer I got to Luke.

Why delay the inevitable? my body whispered demandingly.

INSECURITIES! my mind screeched its inevitable alarm of an answer.

FUCK THAT, AND FUCK HIM! my body roared back.

Unaware of the war that was raging within me, Tom caught up to me with one big stride, his hands resuming their intimate exploration of breasts that swelled and pressed themselves into his touch, nipples that were already hard and tightened even more as long, masculine fingers grazed over them teasingly.

Then he reached for the hem of my blouse and my hands automatically stayed his.

He gave me a surprised look, waiting for me to release him. After a few long seconds, he used his hold on my blouse to pull me against him, his lips finding mine as he whispered, "I want to tug at your nipples with my mouth. I want to flick the tips, and raze them with my teeth -"

Dear God, I wanted that, too, more than anything I'd ever wanted in my life.

But my brain won the battle for dominance - as it always did - and forcibly overrode my hormone-addled body.

Capturing his bottom lip with my teeth, I laughed softly up at him. "I have a better idea," my hands were already pulling his white dress shirt - the one with the buttons that were always working overtime to keep him covered, to every fangirl's deep disappointment - out of his pants and sliding _my_ palms up _his_ sides to find and worry _his_ nipples, watching his head fall back as he groaned, exposing that graceful, long neck of his.

Not for the first time in my life, I wished I was a vampire.

Before he had a chance to grow bored, my hands left his chest to glide - as I slowly lowered myself to my knees in front of him - down to his belt, undoing it as well as the button and zipper I found beneath it, butterflying the front of his trousers and slipping them just far enough down so that I could reach my hand into his underwear and gently - reverently - display his cock and balls.

"God _damn_ , man!" My eyes went round - and my mouth literally watered - at the sheer size and length. "You really _are_ packin'!"

He chuckled and gave me that "aw, shucks, ma'am" grin of his, as if he didn't know the truth of what he had, but at the same time, he turned just a bit so that he could lean back against the shelves, and I adjusted my position so that I remained directly in front of him.

And, as I continued to hold him, he just kept getting unbelievably, intimidatingly _bigger_.

Regardless, I was going to take my time and do this right. I didn't care if the entire herd of Luke's half in the bag, hard partying friends began to knock down the door, I was going to bring this man off - and, if I did things right, make him _scream_ when he finally came.

It would be a memory I would cherish all my life - not to mention something I'd cum to myself probably every time I thought of it. The idea of being able to bring him - the smartest, sexiest man I knew - to orgasm with my mouth, and especially to make him lose control enough actually scream from it - well, I was going to achieve my goal if I had to die trying.

The first thing I did was to lean forward to bury my entire face in his junk, inhaling deeply, loudly, so that he _knew_ exactly what I was doing. I love that _man_ smell. Leather was good, a small amount of sweat was okay, colognes were nice, but nothing beat the true scent of a man.

My reward was immediate - his indrawn breath, and then the way he relaxed beneath me, his hand coming down to cup the back of my head and cradle it there for a long moment, my hot breath blowing directly onto him.

I moved back to bring my hands up and cup all of him, which wasn't easy - not using both hands wasn't an option, and he continued to grow and overflow both of my palms. When I finally let him go, his cock sprang eagerly up, seeking my warmth again.

There was more than one precious drop of liquid at the very tip of him that I reached out to slowly lick away - luxuriating in this tiny taste of him - and he began to groan the moment my wet flesh found his.

"Quiet, Tom," I chided softly, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow.

He had thrown back that gorgeous head of his, but he snapped it forward at my command. "Yes, Mistress," he whispered, his eyes rapt on mine.

Positioning the tip right at my lips but not between them - yet - I asked, "Do you want me to take your cock in my mouth, Thomas?", my lips grazing the most sensitive point on his throbbing dick with every word.

"Fuck yes!" exploded out of his mouth, then more shakily but quietly, "I mean, yes, please, Mistress."

"You don't have to call me that, Tom. I'm not your Mistress. I'm just someone with a true appreciation for you and this gorgeous instrument of yours."

He looked a bit distressed at what I'd said, which was the opposite of my intention. "I - I - I don't know what -"

Softly, "Stop talking, Tom. Just feel."

Then, as I gently cupped and rolled his balls, I slid every inch of him into my mouth and partially down my throat, at first having to consciously remind my body to relax, that this was a welcome invader, and my reflexive attempt to close my throat halted immediately.

I wiggled my tongue along the underside of him while he lay in my mouth and then I excruciatingly slowly began to pull him out, with great reluctance, my lips and tongue clinging to him, licking and flicking him, keeping my mouth tight around every bit of him until he was entirely free of me but remained pressed against my lips until I kissed my way down to his balls as my hand continued to stroke his length.

Each of them was thoroughly washed, then as completely surrounded by my mouth as his cock had been, gently suckling and flicking as I could hear his breathing become more and more labored.

And I'd only just begun.

On a hunch, as I worked my way back to his cock, I looked up at him and said, "Don't cum, Tom."

"What?" I had managed to surprise him.

"Do you need me to quote Right Said Fred? I mean hold back as long as you can. Take your time. Enjoy it. This is something I _adore_ doing, so don't hurry on my account."

"But the party -"

"Fuck 'em." I looked up at him and caught his eyes, letting all of my feelings for him show on my face for the first - and probably the only - time in my life. Softly, I continued, "It's just you and me, Tom. Nothing and no one else matters."

With that, while keeping my eyes on his for as long as I could, I pursed my lips very tightly and begin to press my mouth over him - no hands at all - as if I was rolling my lips over him like a condom, keeping them as tight to him as they could physically get, egged on by Tom's long, guttural moan.

When I could slide forward no further, my nose buried in the taut muscles of his lower belly, I began to rise again the same way, dragging my mouth up him bit by bit, flicking my tongue along him at the same time, and repeating the trip as soon as his tip cleared my lips again. always making him have to break through my lips and into the warm wet embrace of my mouth.

Despite what I'd encouraged him to do, he sounded very, very close already - he was panting as if he was at the end of a run up a mountain, moaning constantly, his hips trying to disrupt my rhythm with his own, hands buried in my hair, wrecking the bun I'd carefully constructed to keep my hair out of my way, but who cared? If he wanted to pull it out by the roots, that would have been be fine with me.

Eventually I began to shorten my efforts until my mouth and tongue concentrated solely on the very tip of him while my hands went to work on his shaft, using my generously slickened trail to begin a rhythm that started out as a slow walk, but ended up running.

Because I could see that he was about to lose control, I thrust my hand down my own pants to gather some of my own juices onto the tip of my pinky finger, my free hand coaxing him away from the shelves and then, just seconds before the point where I knew he was going to cum, I pressed my pinky finger into his bottom - not too far, just enough to add a sensation that he apparently liked, because he did scream, as I had wanted him to, cumming immediately down the back of my throat in long, creamy spurts that I swallowed eagerly.

He seemed to spasm for a very long time, and I kept him in my mouth as he began to recede and before he even knew what was happening, I removed my little invader. His hand rested on top of my head as he leaned back against the shelves again, his legs shaking with the effort of remaining standing.

I took that as a huge compliment.

There was a stool - one meant to help short people reach the higher shelves - folded in one corner, and I opened it for Tom and helped him to sit on it, worried that he was going to pass out on me completely.

When I would have gone to wash my hand, he grabbed the other one - thankfully - and I realized that he was shaking all over.

"No one - no one's -" He cleared his throat and tried again. "No one's ever done that to me. I've had -" he blushed - "well, a fair amount of blow jobs in my time." His eyes found mine. "But that was . . . " he chuckled and blushed again. "I have no words. Can you believe it? _Me_ , unable to articulate something?"

I pressed a kiss to his lips and said, "You were amazing. I just need to visit the bathroom for a moment to . . . wash up."

He looked confused for a second, then another, even more neon blush. "Yes, yes, of course."

I patted his still shaking leg. "I'll be right back."

Luckily, the loo wasn't far and no one even seemed to notice me - they were all much too far gone. I was back in seconds, and Tom was right where I left him.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so. I tried to get up to adjust my clothes and had to sit back down again."

I had made Tom Hiddleston, a man who prided himself on being in top physical shape, weak in the knees. It was going to take quite some time for that to sink in. I laughed softly. "I bet you had quite a bit of the drink before you came to see me. You deserved to." This party was in celebration of the very successful run of _Coriolanus_.

His response was alarmingly serious, and his relaxed demeanor evaporated. "Don't you believe that for a moment. I could drink most people under the table. The reason my knees are weak - as they have been for about six months now - " which was as long as I'd known him - "can be laid entirely at your cute little feet, and absolutely nowhere else."

It was my turn to blush.

"And, as soon as I'm able, I'll return the favor."

Uh-oh. Here it comes. The part that I dreaded the most. "Well, that's really . . . uh . . . not necessary, but thank - thank you for the off - thought."

 _Jeez, awkward, much?_

His brow crinkled and his face was starkly disbelieving as his mouth opened just slightly, yet the bastard still managed to look as if he was fit for the cover of _Vogue_ \- which was one of the reasons why I was saying what I was saying.

"Are you turning me down?"

I was staring at my feet, at the expensive penne pasta in the pretty brass and glass container, anywhere but at him. "I just . . . would rather not . . . here . . . " That's right. That'll work. Let him think it's the setting and not me and the fact that I'd rather be Torquemada's bottom bitch than let him ever, ever, ever see me naked.

He looked around a bit himself and realized - perhaps for the first time - where we really _were_. "Ah. Yes. This is hardly the optimal setting for our first time together. You're right." Tom reached out and caught my hand, bringing its palm to his lips as he stared into my eyes in that way he had that let you know - in a secret, silent way - that he had never met a woman who was as smart, as funny, or as gorgeous as you were, right there, right then. "You deserve much, much better than this. I'll book us a room at the Savoy. We'll spend this weekend getting to know each other _much_ better."

I carefully remained entirely non-committal. I could ignore the shit out of pretty much any _one_ or any _thing_. "Well, I think your body's telling you you've had enough partying for the evening and you should take a cab home."

"You could come with . . . "

"I have to finish cleaning up here, and I'm staying the night with Luke." Not that Luke knew that at this very moment, but not that he'd mind, either.

As reluctant as he sounded - and he did sound _very_ reluctant - he let me help him out of the pantry, then out of the kitchen. Luke saw us and came over to help - he was pretty sober, considering, and acted surprised that I wasn't helping Tom get home as he let the tall man lean on him for a change.

"I still have clean up to do and then I'm staying here tonight." I said, putting my finger over my lips immediately at him and praying he wouldn't ask too many questions.

 _You are?_ he mouthed at me, but thankfully didn't say out loud.

I nodded.

"Okay, well, let's get you home, mate." Luke made a few gestures at me before they left, the gist of which was that he intended that we were going to have a talk when he got home.

I returned to the relative safety - now that Tom was gone - of the kitchen, picked up and donned the ugly yellow gloves from where they'd landed on the floor when Tom had practically ripped them off me and became Cinderella again, only my Prince was being driven away from me at my own behest and I knew I could never have him anyway, so I grabbed another stack of dishes and let them and my tears dilute the dishwater.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a Tuesday evening and I was just finishing up the day's dishes. I don't know what it was about being elbow deep in dishwater that seemed to be some sort of mating call for him, although it wasn't Tom that I was expecting. It was Luke who had called about a half hour ago, saying that he might drop by, so I'd left the door unlocked in anticipation of his visit.

Oblivious me didn't have the slightest clue that I was being set up, of course.

Typical.

So when I heard the door open I didn't even bother to turn around, but said, cheerfully as I ran the sudsy sponge over my cereal bowl from this morning, "Hi, Lucas, my love!"

But when I turned to smile at him, it was Tom - looking truly devastating in yet another beautiful blue suit while I stood at the kitchen counter in a pair of baggy, raggedy pull on shorts that I bought at Goodwill for a dollar about fifteen years ago and an equally fetching "Night in the Ruts" t-shirt that had been my sister's and was so worn it was threadbare all over and at least a size too small now- who was leaning against my door, arms folded across his chest - and he wasn't smiling in greeting, either.

Not that I could blame him in the least. I'd been avoiding him since that aberration of an incident happened in Luke's _pantry_ , for Chrissakes. What the fuck had I been thinking to whip out Tom Hiddleston's cock and have my way with it when we could have been discovered at _any_ time by large, ravening herds of thoroughly soused people who - even when they were sober - ate gossip and shat snarky comments, both about their supposed friends?

It was a miscalculation on my part of truly epic proportions because although I certainly had no ideas above my station, Tom apparently had enough of them for me - the tenacious cuss - and because of that I began to do something I would have sworn I would never have done in my life - out and out dodging him and his persistent invites that always referenced something about the fact that he "owed me one", which was truly the last thing I ever wanted him to feel about me, on several levels.

I have always been ruthlessly honest with myself about who and what I am. I'm the one who has to look at myself in the mirror every morning. And the stark truth was that - although I wasn't quite Quasimodo - close but no cookie - I'd have to try hard to become barely passable looks-wise, and I'm almost never motivated enough to do that. Plus I've always been so far from the current "turn sideways and you disappear" requirements of attractiveness as to be ridiculous. My boobs and my butt are entirely too large, to say nothing about the rest of me being too curvaceous on the whole, also.

So, as far as I'm concerned, I'm an untouchable and he's . . . well, the epitome of a physically perfect angel - inside and out - and I'd never be hubristic enough to think that the twains would ever meet in real life. Masturbatory fantasies aside - and he'd been the star of mine for quite some time - we could _never_ be together in the biblical sense - well, no more than we already had in that weird, incident out of time and space that was my impulsive, completely stoopid decision to orally gratify him - because there was no way that I would ever become comfortable enough with him to be naked in front of him so that he could pay his entirely imaginary debt to me.

That just was _never, ever_ going to happen.

 _Ne_ ver.

 _Ev_ er.

In part because, not only was I embarrassed about my body, but I was truly horrified by the prospect that I might have to actually _explain_ that fact to him - the person I knew who was so supremely confident in his own physicality that he had admitted that, given the chance, he would decline to switch bodies with anyone.

Who the hell is that confident enough about themselves - their looks, their physical capabilities - that they _wouldn't trade bodies_ with Angelina Joli or Brad Pitt or Jason Momoa or Emilia Clarke?!

Why, Tom Hiddleston, of course.

The asshole.

The very idea of having to actually bare my soul to him - to confess my inadequacies and insecurities - practically made me dissolve into nauseous tears every time I so much as thought about it.

I really just wished the entire incident had never happened, and that we could go back to just being the good friends that we'd been anteblowjob.

Hence the avoidance behaviors, at which I was pretty much an expert already.

Or rather, had been, since it seemed that I had been quite neatly and entirely unsuspectingly played by the two men in the world that I was supposedly closest to.

"So _him_ you'll talk to and see, apparently. Me, the man you brought off with your mouth so deliciously, so wonderfully, so lovingly, you avoid like the plague." His deeply scolding tone got to me right from the start, of course, as he knew it would from some loose-lipped talking about what I liked in bed that I'd done one evening while we were drinking- to my complete and total horror the next day - about which I had incredible regret, too, of course.

Yeah, so I'm a cowardly little shit, I'll freely admit that fact - just not to _him_.

I couldn't stand to hold his gaze any longer, not when he looked hurt and angry and I knew it was entirely my fault. His expression made my own eyes water at how my own inadequacies were effecting him. So I turned resolutely back to my dishes, which I now could barely see through my own tears. This was becoming entirely too familiar a position for me around him.

I did my best to rapidly blink them back, though, not wanting him to see them.

The door rattled as he forcefully levered himself away from it. "Nothing to say?" he asked, and I could hear how much closer he was to me already. My heart began to slam against my sternum, and my stomach began to churn.

But at the same time, I could feel my body's inevitable tribute to him - to the mere _idea_ that he was _talking_ to me, and that he was _voluntarily_ going to make himself physically close to me, no matter how much my mind made me truly dread the idea - dampening my panties.

I sighed, tired of avoiding a man I missed desperately, tired of struggling to come to grips with the fact that I had probably made a fatal blunder that was going to cost me one of the few things in my world I would have killed to have kept - my relationship - such as it was - with him.

What could I say? He was dead right.

My words were barely above a whisper, as if I couldn't bear for him to actually hear them. "I don't know what to say."

His own sigh was part resignation, part exasperation but that didn't stop him from advancing towards me in the least, and I couldn't stop myself from stiffening when his arms wrapped around me from behind, echoing the way they had that night.

Besides his talent for catching me elbow deep in dishwater, he also seemed to have developed a knack for hugging me when I was braless. Despite the fact that he was batting a thousand these past two times, I was almost never _not_ wearing one. The girls were big enough that they needed the support, and I was finding that I desperately needed a layer of defense between us that was now glaringly absent.

There was no way he could have missed the fact that they were resting on his muscular forearms as he seemed to settle in behind me as if for a siege. Those long, powerful legs parted and I could feel them surrounding me as surely as his arms did, his bearded cheek coming to rest next to mine.

"Tom, don't . . . " I whispered weakly and completely devoid of conviction, obviously saying what I thought I _should_ say rather than what I wanted to. I tried to cringe away from him because I knew I ought to, but quickly discovered that I was very effectively trapped by his intoxicatingly close presence.

"What is it that you don't want me to do, baby?" His soft, regretful words disturbed the fine curls around my ear, tickling me and sending chills rippling through my body. "Am I not allowed to hug you any more, either?" He sounded truly unhappy at that prospect.

That would truly be petty of me, and he knew I wouldn't tell him he couldn't.

"Of course you can hug me . . . "

His arms immediately drew even tighter around me, and my flimsy cotton shirt, which was barely able to contain my boobs, revealed in great detail how my embarrassingly hardened nipples practically poked through the thin, worn fabric. There was no way that I couldn't have noticed that he was staring down at them, which only caused them to peak painfully further.

"I'm very glad to hear you say that." His words blazed their way throughout my vulnerable body, setting new fires here and there and adding to the raging bonfires that had been burning within me since the day I met him. There was a small silence, during which I should have been washing dishes, but my hands lay limp in the water, the way I wanted my body to go limp against his but I wouldn't let it. "Did I do or say something wrong that night, doll? Something you didn't like? Something that would cause you to feel you needed to avoid me?" He swallowed hard, making it that much worse for me. "I've gone over and over it in my head and I must just be a complete idiot because I can't for the life of me -"

"No. No. Stop." I couldn't stand to hear him sound so unsure of himself, and the idea that he might blame himself for my faults was appalling. I was stuck again and couldn't do what I might have - patted his arm - because I didn't want to get his suit wet. So instead I leaned my cheek against his - realizing with an alarming melting inside me that his beard was as wonderfully soft against my skin as I had always imagined it would be, not prickly or rough at all. "Please - _please_ don't think anything of the sort. Really. You were perfect that night."

I could hear his teeth click together and see him grimace out of the corner of my eye. "But I _was_ selfish! I don't think I've ever done that to a woman - at least not since I was a very young man. I should have found a way to see to you, too."

I tried to shake my head, but his was in the way, so instead I made the sign of the cross over the sink, sprinkling very _not_ holy dishwater around at the same time. "I think things happened exactly the way they were supposed to, and I hereby absolve you of any guilt you've been carrying around because you didn't . . . see to me."

At least that got a smile out of him.

"Thank you, but I'm here now and I'd be very happy to adjourn to your room to even the score - "

Oh dear God.

 _Please._

 _God._

 _. . . Yessssssssssssssss . . ._ my body hissed violently, contracting strongly at the thought.

"No!" I said with a bit too much enthusiasm, I think. He looked quite startled at my vehemence. "I - I uh, don't mean to be a fussbudget, but I don't much like the idea of scorekeeping. This isn't a football match."

He frowned. "Yes, you're absolutely right," Tom agreed, almost too readily.

And that was when I felt him withdraw his arms from around me and for a long moment he didn't make any other move. He was still holding me firmly in place just by being there, the counter pressing into my belly in the front and his cock making its large, demanding presence known at the small of my back.

But then those two big hands of his snuck under the hem of my t-shirt and I renewed my attempts to move out from under his touch - not that he seemed to notice in the least. As alarmed as I was, I couldn't seem to find my voice. The moment his hands connected with my skin - the skin of my tummy, which was much less firm than I would ideally like it to be, not that he was there long because almost before I knew it - _almost_ \- those knowing palms were cupping my breasts; his hands so big that he could cover them completely.

 _Tom Hiddleston was holding my bare breasts in his hands._ The thought had me lightheaded and I let out a belatedly startled yelp, to which Tom whispered a quiet "shhh" into my ear before kissing it, then breathed reverently, "Dear God, your breasts are magnificent."

And he hadn't even seen them yet - nor would he - ever - if I had anything to say about it.

I opened my mouth to protest again, still trying to move out from under his sure touch but unable to wiggle even the slightest bit as delicate fingers converged on peaks that were literally straining towards them, aching, swelling . . . _dying_ to be touched by him.

All I could do was stutter incoherently, "T - T - Tah - Tommmmm . . . "

I could feel his smile against my cheek as he moved to nuzzled my jaw with his nose, tongue flicking out to lick the tender skin he found there. "I love the way you say my name any time at all, but now . . . " he confessed huskily, his hips flexed pointedly forward, pressing himself against me.

Those insistent fingers plucked at my nipples teasingly at first, coning themselves around the rigid pebbles, surrounding them and pinching just slightly, making me arch dramatically as I helplessly offered myself up to him, my head falling back onto his shoulder as I groaned in what I was sure was a manner he'd find appallingly loud and desperate but I couldn't have stopped the toes-deep utterance if my life had depended on it.

"Mmmmmmm. I like that, too - almost as much as I like the way my name sounds when you groan it. I need to hear you do both of those things more often - _much_ more often."

With his hands holding me like this, he was definitely going to get his wish - massaging, squeezing, rolling my nipples much less tentatively as I voiced my pleasure to him in no uncertain - highly embarrassing - terms, whimpering, moaning, my head thrashing back and forth where it was trapped against him as I panted, unable to catch a full breath.

"T - T - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm . . . " I always meant to moan - or, when I could marshal my defenses enough to speak, which wasn't often - "nooo!" but I could never quite get to it, somehow. He was destroying my carefully erected defenses, unleashing then using my own body's innate, unstoppable responses against me, and I doubt he knew quite what that was doing to me.

To my deep shame, I cried out when his hands left me all of a sudden, but it was just to turn me around to face him, quickly divesting me of my familiar yellow gloves. Our eyes collided unintentionally - if I had been in my right mind I would have been staring diligently at the carpet - and I saw his slightly indulgent, understanding smile, as if he not only comprehended but empathized with exactly what I was going through.

Although I knew, in the back of my mind, that there was absolutely no way he could, I still found myself reassured somehow, even when he bent his head to claim my mouth - and that was the perfect description of it, too. He wasn't asking permission. He was taking what he wanted, and I was - God help me - letting him.

We had kissed passionately in the pantry - kisses I'd greedily lived off the memories of since then - but this was different. He was more in control this time - something I desperately desired from him but was absolutely terrified of at the same time - his hand buried in my loosely schrunchied curls, controlling my head as he took the kiss from me, not asking but demanding to deepen it, firm tongue stealing past my barely open lips to plunder and explore, tease and torment, and all I could do was to follow his lead, to kiss him back, my mouth blossoming beneath his.

When he ended the kiss, I wasn't the only one who was panting. I could feel his chest rising and falling rapidly as his breath - somehow always sweet - blew warmly over me.

The pause gave me a chance to gather my scattered wits about me and I realized that I had to try to regain some kind of control over the situation, however tenuous. And what I decided impulsively to do was to return to type.

His hold on me was much looser than it had been and I easily dropped to my knees before him. But as I reached up for the button at the waistband of his trousers, he reached down, barely bending at all, hands easily finding my elbows and guiding me back up to stand against him, held there by the steel band of an arm around my waist.

One eyebrow was raised as he looked down at me and chided softly, "No, my sweet. As much as I love your mouth on me - and God knows I'm dying to feel that again - I'm not going to let you distract me this time."

 _Dammit._ That was my ace in the hole, so to speak. After all, _what kind of guy turned down a blow job?_

The answer, of course, was a very determined, single-minded Tom Hiddleston.

To my abject horror, he caught my eyes and sank to his own knees in front of me, whispering, "I rather think the entire thing should be reversed, don't you? I know I've spent these past ten days fantasizing about what you'll taste like - "

But when he reached up to hook his fingers into the elastic of my shorts, my hands practically slapped down on top of his, grabbing them in a death grip as best I could, considering they were twice the size of my own, panting heavily more from stark terror now than desire, "No, please. I couldn't - I couldn't take it," and knowing - _knowing_ \- exactly how he would misinterpret the meaning of my words.

I would have given anything in my life to have put the huge, satisfied grin on his face in any other manner than the one I'd chosen - deceit - but there was no hope for that. There was really no hope for _any_ kind of _true_ intimacy between us, I knew, deep in my heart, and that thought weighed heavily on my mind as he rose reluctantly, not taking his eyes off of mine for a second.

"I thought it took you a while to . . . get there."

 _"Not with you."_ The whispered confession snuck past my lips before I could stop it and it had me turning what I knew was a completely unbecoming shade of red. I actually heard him gasp out loud at my words and I had to look anywhere but at him.

Tom reached out and hauled me against him. "This is what you prefer? It turns you on for us both to be clothed, too?"

My eyes closed on a sigh that was almost more of a sob. I was weak - very, very weak. I should have been pushing him away from me, not leaning into his body as I was, because it felt so damned fabulous - physically and emotionally - to surrender myself to him, even just the slightest bit.

I couldn't even begin to comprehend what I was allowing him to believe about me . . . what I was obviously going to allow him to _do_ to me, I finally admitted to myself, calling myself a cowardly liar at the same time.

But before I came to my senses, before I changed my mind, I nodded slowly, knowing as clearly as I knew my name that I was doing something I shouldn't, on a lot of different levels. I just . . . shouldn't have, and that made me reconsider momentarily, beginning to shake my head and nod at the same time, making him chuckle softly at my indecision as he hugged me tighter, I think trying to diffuse what he perceived as my nervousness.

Then he stilled suddenly, asking seriously, "Are you a virgin?"

Although I understand why my indecision might make him think so, I snorted and shook my head.

I found my face tipped up to his. "You know that I would never hurt you?"

Even more emphatic shaking - of not just my body, but my head, too.

"And you want this?"

 _More than you will ever, ever understand,_ I prayed to myself, slipping my eyes away from him so that he wouldn't read the stark truth in them.

Guiding my back against the counter again using his body to keep me there as he stood slightly to one side, he pressed his face to the side of my head, lips directly over my ear, speaking low and slow, and very distinctly, as if he was reciting a treasured poem. "I just want you to know that I am _dangerously_ close to losing the battle with my less than civilized hunger for you that wants me to strip you naked _right this second_ and bury myself inside you, but I will control it. _For now_." He paused. "But I want to know whether, in just a minute or two, when my hand covers your quim," he said, Lokifying that last word and making me shiver, "and my fingers part your lips - just above where I will take you for my own - are they going to come up drenched in you when I bring them to my mouth to let my tongue - ?"

"Christ, Tom!" I practically sobbed. " _Yes_!"

He kissed me again, deeply, passionately, one hand in hair that was beginning to spill out of my hasty bun and over his hand, one cupping my cheek, at once as if I was something incredibly precious to him that, at the same time, he wanted to ravish into oblivion.

Pulling back, Tom pressed his forehead to mine. "Don't you worry, love," he whispered, his lips wandering slowly over my face. "I'll take care of you."

I whimpered. That was exactly what I was afraid of.

With those arousing, erotic words, he became much firmer, much more take-charge after them. Keeping his eyes on me, he contracted the fingers that were already buried in the curls at the back of my head, using his hold to slowly, deliberately force it back. Never breaking eye contact as he did so, his other hand - the one that had been cupping my cheek - reverently slid the barest tips of his fingers down the vulnerable, sensitive side of my neck, grazing lightly over my collar bone then squeezing each breast it found, possessively tweaking the hardened crests before leaning in to tease my lips with his as it began its descent again, kissing me deeply as that hand glided surely down over my tummy. Panicked, I tried unsuccessfully to arch away from him as I realized that he was feeling not the six pack he was most definitely used to but instead its rounded softness- but there was nowhere to go to get away from his touch.

He must have seen my distress because he stopped - the tips of those long fingers barely dipping below the elastic waistband of my shorts.

"All right?" His eyes searched mine for the truth of an answer I knew I could never share with him.

Somehow as I panted in his arms, gazing helplessly into those hypnotic eyes of his, with his hand mere inches from that part of me that wanted him the most - and the least - at the same time, I must have managed to nod or otherwise reassure him that I was okay, although I have no memory of it whatsoever of doing so.

I was much, much too far gone.

Until he whispered firmly, "Spread your legs for me, my darling. Open yourself to me."

I tried to shake my head but his hold was much too firm, and squirming away from him rather than obeying him didn't work, either, nor did it dislodge his hand one bit away from where it lay just shy of getting to know me biblically.

"Look at me, babygirl."

I pouted and huffed, but did as he asked.

"Do I need to turn you around again, take those shorts and panties down to your knees and spank that beautiful behind of yours? Because I will . . . "

He smiled evilly at my horrified gasp. He was _not_ kidding. Either option was unbearable, but I did not want him to spank me. I think he'd enjoy it entirely too much, so I began to slide my feet - slowly, reluctantly - away from each other, stopping when they were about a foot apart.

He didn't hesitate to capture my nearest slippered foot between his own, his body turned fully towards mine as he inched it away from its twin while I whined and keened and begged him not to. "No, Tom, please - " But his mouth over mine cut off what I had been going to say, easily making me forget it entirely.

Before he stopped, my legs were at least as far apart as his were in a power stance, his hand still hovering just above the top of my shorts as he moved just slightly to the side.

And then he did it, in one bold move, almost as if he worried I'd change my mind, and those classically elegant fingers molded themselves almost chastely over the outside of my most intimate parts, which was bad enough.

Lips nibbled gently at my arched throat. "Breathe."

I had no idea I was holding my breath, but he'd noticed and that said a lot about him. I let out all the air in a loud puff, and as I did so, his index and middle finger delved purposefully between my lips, releasing a steady flood of me that trickled down over his hand and onto panties that were already long since wet.

Since about the day I met him, I'd say.

The look on his face was very close to worth all off this - he looked as if he'd bought swampland and found oil on it. And I was frighteningly comfortable with thinking of myself as swampland, which said a lot about _me_.

None of it good.

My insecurities - which were never far from the surface - began to rise again, bubbling up and out as my hand glommed onto his wrist and began to pull at just the same moment as he was about to press those inquisitive fingers up inside me. But it was like trying to dislodge a steel girder.

"Please - please, Tom - "

As if my hand wasn't there, as if I wasn't using every ounce of strength I owned to try to stay his advance, those fingers began to penetrate me, and as they did, the mind blowing sensations those fingers created as they found their way inside me made my grip on his wrist loosen to the point that I'm sure it looked as if I was guiding him into me instead. I certainly was more leaning on his arm for dear life than trying to pry it away at that point.

As I was resolutely stretched and filled by him, I couldn't hold back the guttural groans those powerful feelings evoked. "Annnnngggggahhhhhhhh . . . " My eyes rolled back into my head, I swear, and I was worried I was going to begin to drool - he felt so fucking good, burying those digits inside me and watching me avidly as he did so.

"Look at me," came the hoarse rasp.

Eyes that had fluttered closed as his fingers found an extremely snug home within me opened slowly and I could see his own desires reflected starkly in their startlingly blue depths. "You are always so beautiful, but here . . . now . . . like this . . . I'm about to thoroughly unman myself without even having been touched because of just how gorgeous you are, and how hot it is that you respond to me so readily like this - you're so sensitive - so wet for me . . ."

 _You breathtakingly handsome fucking_ liar, _you_.

 _It's all because it's you, Thomas,_ I whispered in my mind before the words threatened to come out of my mouth. _It only ever_ has been - _only ever_ will be - _for you, and you alone._

And then he began to move them, slowly, surely, their tips deliberately flicking the spot on me that most men had either missed or never bothered to look for at all.

Of course Tom was on it from stroke number one and he never let up, very quickly beginning to fuck me hard as his head bent to capture a bobbing nipple between his teeth - not biting in the least, just holding it in place for his tongue to flick torturously quickly over the very tip of, then doing the same thing to the other, those insistent digits finally slacking off, curling and twisting on their last plunge and retreat, making me whine with the loss as they left me entirely, but then seeing them reappear above us to be pressed eagerly into his mouth, tongue coming out to lap at my essence as if he was cleaning frosting off a beater, after which he kissed me, transferring my own taste to me.

I practically came right then and there.

When he finally leaned back, he murmured low against my lips, "You taste like . . . " he let out a harsh breath, " _mine_."

Seconds later they were back where they had been, this time not venturing so far into me but rather basting themselves in my moistness to bring it lazily up my slit.

My entire body contracted as soon as the tips of his fingers came in contact with my clit and I grabbed at his wrist again, finally able to get the word out I'd been trying for all night, panting, "No, Tom - Oh. My. God. Please - I - "

As he began to brush excruciatingly slow fingertips over that aching pearl, he ordered softly, "Put your hands on my biceps, little one."

And the bastard had the nerve to simply stop until I obeyed him, placing one hand kind of more hanging off his elbow where it was bent because his hand still held my head back by my hair, the other on responding even more reluctantly, barely dragging itself up from his wrist, over his forearm to the bulging muscle of his bicep on the same arm that curved down to boldly claim the depths of my secrets.

As soon as I complied, the teasing began again, and he adjusted his other hand to cradle my head more, a long thumb lying along the underside of my jaw to still hold my head back, fingers splayed on the other side of my neck, holding me tightly but quite elegantly still for him, our eyes locked together.

And then he said something eerily insightful as those fingertips continued to dance insistently over my swollen bit, again and again. "This is for _me_." It was not a question . There wasn't the slightest hesitation or inquiry in his voice. He was stating a fact as his fingers flicked back to my entrance and he said the exact same thing before returning them to where they had been torturing my clit. " _No other man_ will _ever_ touch you here again but me. _No other man_ will _ever_ pleasure you as I do now - as I will pleasure - and punish - you in the future."

 _Dear God, was this man reading my mind? Was he eavesdropping on my every fantasy?_

My body started when he said the word "punish" and I saw a broad, satanic grin slash across his usually angelic face, although he didn't elaborate.

Instead, he kissed me, tongue plunging as he thrust his hips against me and redoubled the pace of his fingers, murmuring, "Surrender to me, babygirl. Surrender your mind, your body . . . your pleasure. And I will treasure them as surely as I treasure the rest of you."

As the unmistakable signs of my culmination began to overcome me, body and mind, my hips began to roll, rocking myself against his hand as I stared up into eyes that were giving me a look from him that I had coveted since I'd fallen for him - the one that I'd seen him give to other women that were obviously special to him in some way.

And that - more so than anything else he'd done to me - broke me - and the floodgates of my orgasm - wide open.

I screamed, moving frantically in his arms, flailing against his unyielding hold as towering, almost frighteningly strong waves of ecstasy crashed violently over me and just seemed to keep rolling in, stealing my breath, my control, my sanity, breaking continuously over me, stripping me raw, washing away the comfortable pretext and pretense I'd created in my mind that this would be all right to do this once - to let him do this to me, because I wanted it - wanted him - _so much_ -

 _So. God. Damned. Much._

\- weaving the fairy tale in my mind that I could survive afterwards the way I needed to.

Without him.

Because, even in the middle of such pure, uncontrollable ecstasy, all of the doubts and inadequacies I saw glaringly in myself reared their ugly heads, reminding me that no true progress had been made in allowing this selfish indulgence. That we were still right where we'd begun, only now he was going to think that he was entitled to see me naked, with all the lights on or in broad daylight, in all my chubby-assed glory, with every single one of my innumerable, hideous flaws on display which would certainly send him running screaming away from me.

And that thought was much worse than what I knew I now had to somehow find the strength to do.

The folly of what I'd allowed in succumbing to the weakness that was my attraction to him - in taking the easy way and delaying the inevitable unpleasantness - and the horrifying thought of what I now had to do - weakened my knees as surely as the pleasure he'd brought me had, and I collapsed against him, unable to support myself, my body still helplessly contracting in the aftermath of what he'd brought to me.

As startled as he must have been, Thomas simply sank gracefully to the floor with me, holding me on his lap and rocking me for a good long while, his hand still lying familiarly between my legs, as if it had lain there a million times before.

When his fingers began to curl against me again, as if to instigate round two, I had recovered enough to find the strength to lift myself off his lap and away from hands that I felt grab at the air behind me.

For a moment I simply stood there, several paces away from him, my face buried in my hands, willing the tears not to come and losing that battle before it had really begun. And when I cried, it was far from a pretty thing, especially when it was about something like this that I cared more deeply about than almost anything in my life.

Tom was beside me immediately, then around me in a second, trying desperately to hold me as I turned inward on myself, wrapping my own arms around my body and doing my best steadfastly avoiding - and ignore - his, until I had forced myself to come to grips with what I knew I had to do, no matter how much it hurt.

In the end, it would hurt less than carrying on this farce.

That's what I kept repeating to myself anyway, as I walked slowly away from him - determinedly removing myself from his arms - which was one of the hardest things I'd ever done in my life, to turn down the warm, caring embrace he offered - to move to my door and, after a choked sob, pulled it open to stand next to it, my eyes glued to the floor, one hand remaining resolutely on the door knob, the other hand held over my mouth as I wept.

His silence was telling, and, out of the corner of my eye, I could see him run his hand through his hair as he looked at me disbelievingly, as if on one hand he wanted to run to me and comfort me because I was crying, but on the other hand he wanted to throttle me for acting so strangely, so coldly.

I could hardly blame him. He had every right to assume that we'd end up in my bed together tonight - not that he'd be silently shown the door moments after he'd skillfully - dare I say lovingly - brought me to a screaming, writhing orgasm.

He sighed angrily, storming up to stand pressed indecently close to me, capturing my chin in his fingers - the ones that were still damp and heavily scented with my arousal - to jerk my head back anything but gently. "Look at me, God damn it."

I'd never heard him talk to anyone like that, but my tear filled eyes slid reluctantly to his, nevertheless.

His jaw clenched, the muscle within it ticcing madly, and I knew the battle was still raging within him, since his first impulse was always to soothe and comfort. But his angry side won out as he hissed, "I don't know what's going on in that tortured little mind of yours, and I bet you think that this is going to make me walk away from you. But you're wrong, little girl." With that his lips descended on mine, kissing me hard, grinding his mouth on mine, his other hand running possessively over my body, groping me obscenely, embarrassing me but I refused to complain although I automatically cringed away from him.

It was the least I deserved for treating him so badly, and I knew it.

My eyes had wandered back to a spot on the floor.

"Look. At. Me." he growled, shaking me once, hard enough to rattle my teeth.

It took me a longer while, but they finally met his.

"This is far from over, my lovely. I'll give you tonight, but I'm going to be on your doorstep tomorrow morning, and you're going to let me in because you're going to feel mighty guilty about having thrown me out. And when you do, I'm going to strip you naked and spank your ass till sitting down is just a distant dream, then I'm going to fuck you until you can't think about anything else but having me inside you."

With one last angry, almost punishing kiss, he backed out the door, keeping eye contact with me until I closed it resolvedly, immediately leaning heavily against it and sinking to the floor with a bone-jarring thud that didn't even make a dent in my weeping.

I hadn't noticed that he hadn't walked away. I didn't know he was still standing there in the hallway, forcing himself to listen to my soul-rending sobs until I heard him, speaking to me through the door at the same level as my head - seeing him in my minds eye crouching down and pressing his fingertips against the door where he thought I might be on the other side, his head bowed as he said those soft, but nonetheless strong, powerful words I least expected to hear from him - ever, ever in my life.

"I was saving this to say to you the first time we made love, but I want you to hear it - to _know_ it - now." There was a pause, and when he spoke, his voice was choked with tears, "I love you."

I curled in on myself, my sobs growing exponentially in volume at what he'd revealed to me, entirely unable to act on the impulse that nearly overtook me to shoot up from the floor, open the door and throw myself into his arms. Instead I simply sat there for long, interminable beats, drowning in my own misery.

There was a soft thud that might have been his forehead - or his fist - against the door behind me.

"I . . . I love you," he repeated hesitantly, obviously surprised and saddened by my lack of response to his heartfelt declaration.

And then there was the excruciating sound of him rising and, after a long second's hesitation, walking away as I felt parts of my heart beginning to die off with every step he took that carried him away from me.


	3. Chapter 3

As I lay in bed after having literally crawled to it across the floor of my apartment from where I had been slumped against my front door sobbing piteously for hours after he'd left, shades drawn, room funereally dark, weeping and crying so hard I was literally choking, my body curled in on itself in the fetal position, hindsight took control of what little of my brain was still functional in order to torture me even further.

 _I should have told him no._

 _I should have fought him more fiercely, taken a stand and held my ground._

 _I shouldn't have allowed my hormones to control me._

As if it was that easy.

. . . as if it was merely that, just simple lust and nothing more, nothing deeper, as if my heart wasn't lying ripped open and bleeding out into my ravaged soul.

What I'd done - what he'd done - the enormity of what had happened between us in such a relatively short amount of time rattled around in my head all night, keeping me up, weeping inconsolably, trying to find some sort of succor by hugging myself and rocking or burrowing under the covers with them pulled up and over my head, but of course nothing helped, nothing eased the shame and pain I felt about what I had done to him, and for him . . .

. . . about what he'd very bravely confessed to me, the mere thought of which still made it even more impossible to breathe.

I don't know if I could have done it, myself - to say something so powerful through a door that had been deliberately closed on me by the person I loved in order to put a physical barrier between us, while he wept brokenheartedly on the other side of it.

 _He had said he loved me_. Whether that was prompted by any guilt he felt, I didn't know - although I _did_ know because Tom wasn't a person who ever did much of anything to feel guilty about, and I knew he certainly hadn't with me. _I_ was the one who bore the guilt of this situation, every bit of it, for allowing myself to dream, for allowing myself to act on those dreams I had for someone who was so far above my station.

Not in social rank, per se, although handsomeness certainly translated to that nowadays, but in the way of the fact that someone who looked like me had absolutely _no business_ even just hanging around someone who was as painfully gorgeous as he was - much less allowing him to bring me to such heights, having done the same - I hoped - for him in the first place, in the ill-fated act that had precipitated this agonizing cluster-not-quite-fuck.

I couldn't even begin to deal with what he'd admitted to me, and it hurt so much to think about what I knew I absolutely _had_ to do the next time I saw him that I alternated between railing against my fate in having lost the genetic lottery so badly that I couldn't even begin to entertain the idea that - although I loved him, too, with every breath I had in me - there might actually be a way we could be happy together, and out and out wailing my unhappiness into my pillow, not wanting to disturb my neighbors with my suffering.

Some time, just before dawn, I fell into an exhausted sleep, only to be rudely awakened by a sharp rapping on my door at precisely seven o'clock, less than an hour later.

 _Someone_ was knocking at my door, politely but firmly at first, but getting much less so very quickly as if his patience - which I had always thought was pretty infinite - had come to an abrupt end. I threw the covers off, knowing exactly who it was that was practically breaking my door down, dreading this confrontation worse than anything else ever in my life, which caused me to move much more slowly than the agitated man in my hallway - who was likely to wake the whole friggin' building if he didn't cut it out - would have preferred, apparently.

I got up and threw a robe over my cotton nightie, practically screaming, "Hold your horses, God dammit! I'll be there in a second!" although my voice had been so thoroughly ruined by the pleasure he'd brought me to yesterday - to say nothing of the bawling I'd been doing all night - that I didn't even recognize it.

Well, there's the ticket. Scream and swear at him like a shrew and he'll be out of here in a New York minute, I thought, catching sight of myself in the full length mirror I usually studiously avoided and taking a horrified step back. I looked like a _Walking Dead_ zombie who'd just gone a highly unsuccessful round with Michon - much, much worse than usual, if that was even possible. My eyes were nearly swollen shut from having cried all night, the dark circles beneath them showing even darker against my pale, wan skin. My curls - which were a little longer than shoulder length, rioted around my head much less like the halo his had so effortlessly mimicked when he was younger and much more closely resembling some demented rat's nest.

A thought gave me pause. Should I clean myself up? Get dressed? Brush my hair? Put on perfume, maybe?

I immediately rejected all of those ideas. It would be much easier to convince him that we didn't belong together if he had an example right in front of him as to exactly _why_ we didn't. I couldn't imagine that he had ever looked this bad even on his worst day.

By the time I got to the door, he had long since started to knock again - more like pounding - and not only that, he'd begun yelling. _Yelling_. I'd barely ever seen him even _hint_ at being angry, much less giving way to a full fledged roar as he was now. "Stop stalling and open the fucking door or, so help me God, I _will_ kick it down!"

I could hear that - of course - someone just happened to be passing down the hall as he issued that treat, so completely without looking I hurriedly opened the door then blindly reached my hand out and grabbed a handful of what I prayed was going to be his shirt - and not his crotch - to drag him into my flat with me and away from prying eyes and ears, unspeakably relieved when it was a fistful of his hoodie I got rather than a fistful of his package.

I let go of him immediately once we were both inside, carefully taking a couple of steps back so that we weren't touching after I shut the door, not really noticing as he locked it, only seeing how tiredly he sagged back against it, facing me, his hands folded in front him as if he knew he couldn't trust them to be anywhere else.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who'd had a rough night; he was dressed just about as casually as I'd ever seen him in a black hoodie, a white t-shirt and old, soft looking jeans that molded themselves lovingly to every muscular - and otherwise - bulge, making my mouth literally water as I fought my almost overwhelming desire to trace those gorgeous contours of his with my lips and my hands.

He definitely looked more haggard than I'd ever seen him too, his hair matted down as he doffed his Cleveland Indians baseball cap and hung it on one of the pegs next to the door, his eyes just as red rimmed and dark circled as mine, and - in what I considered much worse than any of those overt signs of his own anguish - they were alarmingly dull compared to the bright vivacity to which I - or anyone who knew him well at all - was used.

Just looking at him made me want to resume weeping where I'd left off early this morning when I'd fallen asleep. My hand went to my mouth in shock, followed quickly by those all too eager twins, guilt and shame. This is what I had wrought with my hubris - I'd single-handedly managed to make Tom Hiddleston look unbelievably sad and as close to ugly as he probably ever had been or would be in his life - although it was really only a bit less attractive - heart wrenching angst looked relatively good on him, especially in comparison to me just like everything else - which meant that instead of being a fifteen on a scale of one to ten, he was only a ten.

 _Go me_!

He might have been exhausted - and he certainly looked it - but he wasn't acting the part in the least. Having given me a an almost insultingly thorough once over, he immediately began to stalk me, taking large steps towards me that had me backing up blindly, more worried about not letting him get his hands on me than where exactly it was that I was going to end up.

Weary or not, tired or not, dead three days or not, I realized something very starkly and quickly as he relentlessly advanced on me - having done what I'd done with him originally, and last night having let him do to me what he'd quite expertly done - to say nothing of what he'd said, both during the excruciating intimacies and then during his equally excruciating leave taking - had ratcheted up my already acute awareness of him exponentially.

As I backed up warily, my eyes locked with his through no desire of my own, my body - which I had incorrectly assumed would be on my side for some reason - had already begun to prepare itself for his possession. I was hyperaware of everything about him - every spot on me that he'd already touched, especially my most intimate ones - was in full rebellion, tingling, aching, yearning to feel those sure, knowledgeable fingers on me again, rubbing, probing, teasing, cupping - taking possession of me, owning what was already his, as far as they- and he - were concerned.

My mind, however, knew the horrible reality of what I was going to have to say to him in order to end this travesty once and for all and it made me want to curl up in a ball and weep endlessly. I felt divided within myself, torn asunder by the entire situation.

I had to lie to him and tell him that I didn't feel the same way. I _had_ to. Lying wasn't something I did casually, ever, and to do so in this situation - when I most definitely _did_ love and want him much more than I wanted to draw my next breath - was going to kill me.

At the very least, it was going to change me - irrevocably - and not for the good. The idea of hurting him in any way was so abhorrent to me that I was feeling considerably nauseous at the idea.

Then my heels hit the bottom of the couch and suddenly I was off balance, knowing I was going to end up dropping down onto the cushions in the most inelegant manner imaginable as he watched.

And why not? That was how my life was going these days.

But I was dead wrong.

His hands shot out, lightening fast, catching me as I was beginning to fall and snatching me tight up to him, his already impressively proportioned cock pressing unapologetically into my tummy, held there by his hand sprawled at the small of my back, as if he wanted to claim as much territory as possible.

Lord knows there was entirely too much of it there, especially just a bit south of where his hand lay.

I tried to ease away from him, my eyes drifting - entirely of their own accord - up to his, and when they collided I couldn't help but draw a short, sharp breath at the raw pain I saw reflected there, although it was quickly being replaced by things that made him much less vulnerable and me much more so.

Anger. Desire. Determination. Strength.

 _Power_.

As I watched that change come over him, I tried to escape his hold - somewhat timidly at first, but then, as his change of expression inspired more than a slight fission of fear deep within me, more determinedly.

But I couldn't move, especially when his other hand, which had been cupping my hip, began to trail up my body, blatantly possessive as it molded itself to me while I tried desperately to shy away from it with absolutely no success at all.

Feelings of inadequacy flooded painfully through me - he should have been feeling hip bones and then ribs clearly delineated beneath his palm, and they were there, somewhere, but were hidden by my unfashionably - and I was sure unpleasantly to him - generous proportions.

Just as I was about to emit an agonized wail, he covered my breast with his hand, capturing all of it, the nipple that had been spiked since I'd first heard him at my door nestling cozily into his broad palm.

I gasped out loud at the contact. Dear God, that alone was very nearly enough to bring me off, but combined with my hyper-awareness of him - how the remnants of his cologne and the essence of pure man that I had been in the habit of conjuring to mind whenever I touched myself, how hard it was for me to resist the urge to press myself further into that broad palm, how even such a relatively tame touch had my clit - hell, my entire lower body - contracting sporadically, helplessly - I was actually having to fight off a full blown orgasm.

I closed my eyes and turned my head, trying to take a deep, steadying breaths - anything to calm my nerves and my heart, which were both racing out of control at his touch, as if they each wanted to be the one to render me dead.

" _Look at me_ ," he rasped, squeezing that over-full globe at its base, forcing it into even greater prominence against the thin material of my nightie and robe.

"No, Tom," I whispered, my voice barely producing much of any sounds at that volume and I was surprised he could hear me as I kept my face averted and my eyes tightly closed.

My breast was immediately abandoned in favor of his hand cupping my chin and I found my head being forcibly turned towards him. " _Yessss_. Open your eyes," he ordered in a threatening growl, which had my eyes flying wide open immediately beginning to fill with tears as they gazed into his. And then he piled on, "I believe you owe me at least the courtesy of looking me in the eye." He chose that moment to adjust his hold on me so that we were brought even closer together, which I would have sworn was a physical impossibility.

As he spoke, I could see - and feel - how tense he was holding himself; his teeth on edge with ever word as it was ground from between taut lips. "I don't much care at this moment whether or not you want to hear it, but I want to say it where I can _see you_ while I do it this time."

It truly seemed that I couldn't remember a time when my eyes weren't brimming with tears, and they overflowed with remorse at his words.

He swallowed hard, his voice starting out a bit broken with emotion, but gaining strength as he spoke even as his own eyes filled. "I love you _so_ much. I adore you. I worship you. I never, ever want to be away from you, even for a second." He cleared his throat and continued, his lips dangerously close to mine, his tone deeper, huskier, "If neither of us had any other obligations, I would live inside you, keep you beneath me in our bed, always full of me. We'd never not be making love." His kiss was a passionate extension of his words, yet wonderfully, surprisingly gentle at the same time, the fingers of that big hand entangling themselves in my hair, holding my head firmly but carefully still for his lips to claim mine, our tears mingling as did our mouths.

Tom pulled back a bit, very reluctantly, a few minutes later, pressing his nose to mine.

I was stunned. Speechless. Completely unable to process what he was saying. Mindless from his words and his kisses - to say nothing of his touch.

He moved a bit further away, so that he could take a long, avid look at me before dipping his lips to my ear and whispering in a devastatingly sexy tone, "Your pupils are enormous; I can barely see any of that pretty violet of your eyes because of them. You're panting and can't catch your breath no matter how you try. Your nipples are pebbled. And I would be willing to bet _every single thing_ I own that," he paused to kiss me deeply before catching my eyes again as he continued, "if I slipped my hand between your legs, I'd find you wet and wanting me. I _know_ it." He buried his fingers in my hair again to tug my head back a bit roughly. "And you're going to let me do just that to you, aren't you?"

Was that a whimper that escaped my throat when I should have been putting my foot down, telling him no, demanding that he listen to my so-called truth, that I didn't love him, that I could never . . . ever . . . love . . .

H-him.

Seconds later, he rudely kicked my legs apart, the hand that had been at the small of my back now claiming my lower belly instead, gathering fistfuls of my nightie until he could reach beneath it and insert his fingers beneath the waistband of the least sexy pair of panties I owned.

"No," I breathed, completely without conviction, and it wasn't obvious to either of us whether I was trying to answer him - which would have been a lie - or just to trying to discourage him from doing what I knew he was going to do to me as his fingers began to move inexorably southward, and, because of their tremendous length, it wasn't more than a second or so before he was touching me intimately, their tips resting just above the top of my swollen, moist folds.

Either way, it was a waste of what would rapidly become precious breath.

As he boldly slid them home within me, annoyingly sure of his reception and damned if he wasn't right about it, his eyes held and searched mine, the truth of everything he'd said to me - today and last night - plain as day in them as I whimpered and mewled and sighed at his invasion of my most intimate parts.

This man has said he _loved_ me - another - and the most devastating - reason that it physically pained me to look up at him, but I couldn't seem to rip my eyes from his, regardless of the impetus.

As those devilish fingers began to move within me, he growled, "You can't tell me you don't want _this_." He drove them fiercely into me then curled them against a spot only he had ever attended to that had my feet moving restlessly, my head lolling back on its own. "That you don't _want_ me, because I am in _possession_ of the irrefutable proof that you _do_." His tone softened, becoming achingly tender and vulnerable. "But . . . " he gave a reluctant pause, "if you can tell me that you don't _love_ me," I heard him swallow hard, "I'll go. You - you'll never have to see me again." I could hear how each of the words were individually ripped from the back of his throat, as if he could barely manage to give voice to any of them, that usually bold, strong voice of his cracking on "never" and "again".

That was what I supposedly wanted - my ultimate goal, to make him believe the lie, not to allow him this close to me again. He was giving me an out. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would kill the both of us if I didn't take it _now_.

And it would likely be the end of me if I _did_.

But when he was near me - when I felt the lean, whipcord strength of that body against mine, his hands touching me in places few men ever had as if he was already well past the point of no return, as if I was already _his_ as far as he was concerned - which he'd already informed me of in no uncertain terms last night - what I wanted most in the world dangling right there for me, in front of my eyes, .within my grasp - I couldn't think of anything else.

Memories of the lustful, dominant things he'd said to me hours ago mingled with what he was doing to me right now . . .

"You taste like . . . _mine_ ," he'd said then, warning me seconds later that he wouldn't allow anyone else to touch me, ever.

He'd staked his claim. He was here now to reinforce it.

And yet all I had to do to make things right - and, at the same times horrifically wrong - was something I was physically incapable of, apparently. Four little words.

 _I don't love you_.

And this would all be over.

As if he sensed his advantage, Tom leaned down and lifted me - somehow effortlessly, it seemed, although I couldn't believe that - into his arms, taking the two steps to the left necessary to then head into my bedroom.

But I couldn't even think about how lost I'd be if he was able to cover me with his body. All I could do was worry about the fact that holding me in his arms was going to hurt him, somehow.

"Tom!" I squealed. "Put me down! You're going to break your back!"

He easily hefted me further into the air with a wolfish smile. "Don't be ridiculous. You hardly weigh more than a mosquito."

It was only a few steps more to the end of my bed, but I couldn't allow him to do this. What if he pulled something? What if he fell and I crushed him? What if an injury I caused was the reason he wasn't able to take some potentially Oscar winning part?

"Put. Me. Down. _NOW_."

I found my feet beneath me in record time, and I was loathe to notice that he wasn't even so much as breathing heavy from what must've been considerable exertion.

He was looking at me very intently, a puzzled, and not a little worried, expression on his face, understandably created by my vehement demand.

I took a step away from him and, although his hands came up as if he would stop me, he allowed it and they fell to his sides, but his eyes never left me. "No, you're the one that's being ridiculous, Tom. 'Hardly weigh more than a mosquito'. I don't appreciate being patronized."

"I wasn't -"

His mouth was left hanging open as I interrupted, "I'm not _finished_." The sound of his teeth clicking together as he closed it was horribly loud in the otherwise quiet room; his eyes narrowed on me, letting me know he wasn't at all happy with my tone or my attitude, but he nonetheless remained quiet.

"I don't know if you're just . . . blind or you're - " I snorted derisively "- lovestruck or what, but do you really not _see_ me, Thomas? How you possibly think that you - drop dead gorgeous, walking spontaneous orgasm that you are and I belong together - it's . . . well, frankly, it's downright hurtful."

The puzzled, concerned look was back, deepening into a dark frown, but he still didn't say anything.

I sighed, feeling defeated and deflated, never able to stay angry at anyone for very long, him even less so, and ever present tears rushed forth to fill the void that my anger had left. I put my hand out as if to touch him, which I wanted to do more than I wanted to take my next breath, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it, curing my hand into a fist at first, instead, then unfurling my fingers and using it to cover my mouth as I sobbed.

Tears streaming down my face, I closed my eyes and took as deep a breath as I could manage, forcibly grabbed a hold of my wishy-washy self and said it. I finally said it, my voice and my lower lip trembling so badly I was nearly incoherent even to my own ear.

"You can't _possibly_ , really want me or love _me_ , Tom. You should to be with someone beautiful - someone like Susannah, or Jessica or I don't know. You should be with someone skinny. Someone pretty. Someone you can be proud of having on your arm, that you can show off and eventually marry and create beautiful babies with that you can sing _Pure Imagination_ to and watch _The Jungle Book_ with."

After a long silence, I somehow got brave enough to look up at him and he appeared stunned, as if I'd just smacked him upside the head with a two by four.

Still, he reached out to me, but I ducked away from his hand, and the hurt look on his face at my movement only added to my abject misery.

But I steeled my resolve as best I could and pressed on, addressing the floor, my voice even more choked and tight. "You should be with someone who will look wonderful next to you on the cover of _Vogue_ or _GQ_ and on the red carpet at premieres - not - not someone like me who would need a team of make up artists and stylists - not to mention a year's worth of liposuction - to even become passable."

Despite how hard it was to say these things, I was rambling, babbling from the sheer nerves and pent up emotions, both unbelievably relieved at having said what I had bottled up within me throughout this whole debacle and horrifyingly sad at the same time because I knew it meant that it was very likely that I'd never see him again.

By my - granted, distinctly skewed - calculations, he should have been running screaming out of my flat to get away from me, but instead he took a determined step towards me. My head shot up and my gaze was caught by his stark one. There was no more confusion in his eyes, no more puzzlement. He looked like a man who had just experienced a revelation, just had an epiphany, and he was out to right all the wrongs he could find, armed with this new knowledge.

Having slipped deeply back into my own anguish, I wasn't paying much attention to him, really, although my mind automatically encouraged me to avoid him, and we did that dance that was becoming disturbingly familiar in that, with every step he took towards me, I took one back until I couldn't go any further, having been neatly corralled into the far corner of my room, with Tom standing - his feet as always well apart - in front of me, deliberately caging me there without ever having laid a hand on me.

Unable to bear the wait for him to abandon me, as he surely would - as he surely _should_ \- I wailed, "Go!" More softly, as my heart broke at last into a million unrecoverable pieces, I whispered as I sank to the floor in a gross, sobbing heap in front of him, "You should go, Thomas. Be happy. Find someone who's right for you -"

He followed my descent, crouching in front of me, those beautiful hands out as if he wanted to touch me, to console me, but he didn't dare. Instead they ended up clasped in front of him, as they had been at the door. "I already have."

Those words, delivered in that devastating voice stopped me crying when nothing else could have, because I wasn't really thinking and I was truly shocked to hear that there was someone else, although I knew I had no right to be. I should be happy for him - he'd found someone. _Happy face. Happy . . . face_ , I thought to myself, although I couldn't quite get it to translate to my expression, which was quite pained. "You did?" I couldn't seem to stop myself from asking even though I was truly horrified at the prospect that he was going to then tell me about her.

And then he did, nodding wisely as he produced a tissue and began to blot at my perpetually moist cheeks, his tone rich and warm and soft, full of a wistfulness I'd rarely heard before. "I did. She's everything I've ever wanted in a woman - smart and funny and sassy and sexy and she never lets me get away with anything. And her body - " he drew in an impossibly long breath then expelled it in a devastatingly sexual groan that left my body aching in its wake "I'm no poet, but her breasts and her bottom and her lips and her eyes - I don't think I've ever _not_ been rock hard around her in all the time I've known her, although she's pretty oblivious to that kind of thing. I didn't think she wanted to be anything but my friend."

I was staring at his shoes - marginally alarmed by their enormous size - still crying, of course, huddled as far in on myself as I could get, my arms wrapped around myself, desperately wishing he'd leave so that I could get on with the business of dying slowly.

One long finger lifted my chin until my eyes met his only to slither quickly away. I tried to rescue my chin from his grasp but his fingers held fast.

"D-don't look at me. I'm all puffy eyed and snotty nosed . . . I'm even more h-hideous than usual -"

" _Stop that_." His stern sharpness stung me. "If I _ever_ hear you say anything like that again about yourself, you'll not sit down for a month." My jaw hung open as his had a few minutes ago. "You seem to think that _you're_ the arbiter of what I want - or what you think I should want - in a woman." He stood, and I did my best to prepared myself for the devastation that his walking out that door would cause, trying to turn away from him so I wouldn't actually have to watch him walking out on me and go to another woman.

But instead, I found myself in his arms again. He had deadlifted me.

From the floor.

The man must have a death wish. It was a wonder he had any back left.

I began to try to wrench myself out of his arms, but all he did was contract them and I could barely draw a breath. "Put me down - Tom! You're going to hurt yourself for no reason!"

He stood at the end of my bed for several long beats. "I'm not going to hurt myself, and I'll pick you up any _damned_ time I please, in any _way_ I please." And when he did, finally, let me down, it wasn't simply onto my feet.

No, he released me only enough to allow me to very slowly descend the front of him, keeping his hands pressing on my bottom, guiding me the entire way to assure himself that my body was plastered against his the whole time, and as I was forced to do so, there was no way I could miss his massive erection. I practically got caught on it, right where it most wanted me to, which I'm sure was exactly what he'd intended since his eyes practically rolled back into his head as it happened.

When I arrived on my own two feet, my legs had no choice but to part so that my feet could land to either side of his; his hands remaining exactly where they had been, keeping me obscenely close to him.

"You seem to be functioning under a false assumption - " he cocked his head and drew his chin down which only added another dimension to his strict tone " - _several_ false assumptions, not the least of which is the completely fatuous idea that _you_ are in charge here."

That wasn't at all what I had expected him to say.

"How I ever allowed you to believe such a notion I'll never know. But you, in particular, are not in charge of deciding to whom I am attracted." He rubbed himself against my tummy. "And I am most definitely attracted to _you_."

As he spoke he tipped me over onto the bed, very carefully not allowing me to flop down on it, but instead using his not inconsiderable strength to lay me down very gently, positioning himself next to me, carefully gathering the material of my nightie and pressing it against my side, so that he wasn't lying on any of it.

Then, in what seemed like a split second, he divested himself of every stitch of clothing he'd come in here wearing. I knew I was going to be completely unable to resist the urge to stare, so I forced myself to close my eyes.

"No. Open them."

I steadfastly refused, but he had learned a bit about me from dealing with my own particular brand of crazy for the past couple of weeks, and he didn't get mad and he didn't issue threats. Instead, he simply burrowed his hand under the hem my nightgown and lay it over my tummy.

My eyes sprang open as I felt him touching skin that wasn't anywhere near muscular and taut and I tried to lurch away from him, aiming for the relative safety of jumping off the side of the bed he wasn't on, but all it took to hold me in place was that hand on my stomach - and one long leg that easily slipped between mine even before I tried to make a break for it.

"You're not going anywhere, my darling, until I decide to let you go. I already know you're at least as hot for me as I am for you." He paused, his lips tightening, "And besides, you have yet to say the magic words that will send me away."

The magic words? What the fuck was he talking about, I wondered, having already forgotten - since my mind tended to be a sieve around him, especially when he was this close - that he had said that if I could tell him I didn't love him and didn't want him, he'd leave. And shouldn't he already be out the door and on his way to this dream girl of his?

While I was trying to decipher his remark with a brain that had pretty much ceased functioning as soon as he mentioned that he'd already found someone who was right for him, he casually reached out to me with his left hand, lacing it with the fingers of mine and gently bringing both of our hands up to rest above my head.

In those simple, calm movements, he had quietly relieved me of my ability to move much beyond my left leg, which wasn't any kind of a help at all. My right arm was trapped under his weight and thus essentially worthless, my right leg was beneath his and in much the same situation, my left hand was entwined with his up between the headboard and my head and he seemed in no mood to let it go, and my left leg simply lay there, useless.

His right hand, however, was free. It was the one that was already laying claim to my tummy, and it didn't seem to want to remain in place but began to move up towards my breasts, taking my nightie with it, exposing my rag bag underwear, which at least covered _some_ of the sins of my flesh, although he was now able to stare at my thighs and then some as his hand claimed what it wanted, squeezing each breast thoroughly before reaching down to guide the hem of my nightgown even further up with devastating ease, revealing to those eyes that I knew missed nothing the terrible softness of my belly, the gentle curves that shouldn't have been there, the fact that no one had seen my ribs in decades, all the way up to bunch it up under my arms, almost every one of my secrets exposed to what I was sure was going to be his disgusted gaze, automatically trying to cover myself, to hide myself away from him when I had no ability to do so.

"No, Tom, please, don't do this!"

"Do what, my love?" he asked in a husky whisper, sounding genuinely surprised at my request, capturing my lips with his, then bowing his head to swirl his tongue around a painfully distended peak, suckling it slowly into his mouth. "Don't adore you? Don't love you? Don't become aroused by you?"

Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes. "You can't see me like this - I'm - I'm -"

His hand reached beneath me to squeeze an ample cheek in warning and my eyes flew open to be caught by his. "Be very careful about what you say next - you _know_ what I'll do if you say something that I consider to be derogatory about yourself."

Frustrated beyond words on several fronts, I turned my head away from him, tucking it against my arm until he surprised me by bringing the hand he'd been holding above my head down to cup his somehow elegant hardness as it overflowed my grasp and he began moving helplessly against my palm.

Unable to look away from the contrast between my small, sun browned hand and the presence of his full fledged erection beneath my fingers as it moved within them, I whispered, barely brave enough to put my fears into words, "But - what about h-her? Shouldn't you go be with her?"

"Her who?" He didn't look as if he could think very well, either - he was very concentrated on dragging his cock along my hand as my fingers did their best to wrap themselves around him while he did so.

"The woman you found. The sassy, sexy one who doesn't let you get away with -"

He chuckled, smiling broadly as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me onto my side, holding me tight within his arms. "I _am_ with her, my love. I am right where I should be, where I want to be, and, if you'll have me, I'll never be anywhere else."

I was shocked to my core. I would never have considered the idea that he had been describing me. "But -"

He shook his head solemnly. "No. No buts. I'll say it to you until the end of my days, all day, every day - I'll begin and end every sentence with it, if you like - until you believe it, until you feel it in your heart, until your stubborn mind stops throwing up roadblocks against me." Tom's hand cupped my jaw as he looked down at me, his heart in his eyes. "Until I feel as safe in your heart as I want you to feel you are in mine."

I knew he was trying to unsuccessfully reign in his desire as one big hand slipped beneath the waistband of my panties - the baggy old granny panties that I only wore when I was sick or hurting were being slipped slowly, surely off me as I bit my lip and held my breath. Once he'd kicked them to the floor, he gathered me against him, adjusting me so that I faced him a bit so that when his arms contracted around me, we almost fit together, his cock pressing eagerly against my mound.

He kissed me then, and it was the most tender, loving kiss I'd ever been given in my life, and when he moved away, separating our mouths as slowly as possible, his eyes closed as if he was already experiencing Heaven. Then those devastating eyes opened and wordlessly encouraged me to fall into them, willing me to know that he would catch me as I fell.

"I'm going to ask you something that I know now - and I didn't before - is going to be hard for you to do, but it's something I want desperately."

If he'd asked me to lie down in front of moving bus at that point, I'd've done it, no questions asked.

His fingers came up to my chest and began to pluck at the bunched up nightgown I was still kind of wearing. "Please . . . be naked with me?" I swallowed hard and he rushed to reassure me in a very adorkable, purely Thomas manner. "I know you feel ugly and unattractive, although I hope you realize that that's not at all how you are or how I see you. This," he pressed his eager cock against me, practically gaining entrance to my body with just that powerful thrust even though my thighs were still tightly closed, "should go quite a ways towards proving that to you, I hope, and I know you think I'm sort of ridiculously perfect physical specimen, but I'm really not."

He proceeded to point out all of what he considered to be his faults. "I'm tall and thin, not big and bulky like all the men I've heard - and seen - you drool over." I had the grace to blush, because I certainly had in front of him. "I have a scar right here on my forehead where I was attacked by a vicious, rabid door. My hairline is receding. My hair - unless it's tamed by tons of product - makes me look like a broom, according to my sisters, or a golden retriever. My teeth are fixed and my eye color is often contacts. I have a scar on my upper lip thanks to Emma."

Leaning a bit away from me, he moved down his body, continuing to point out various blemishes that no one but him would ever notice.

"My cock -" he began, but I interrupted him.

"No."

His head jerked up and our eyes collided. "No?"

"No, you cannot say anything derogatory about your cock. It's perfect."

"It does kind of curve a bit -"

I put my index finger over his lips. "No."

Just before his mouth formed a huge grin, he kissed the side of my finger. "I shall gladly defer to the lady on matters of just how aesthetically pleasing my equipment is."

"Damn straight," I agreed.

But then he continued, ending with, "And lastly, there are my freakishly big, narrow feet."

By this time my eyes were practically rolling out of my head. " _Please_ , Thomas, you're fucking perfect."

His eyes settled warmly on mine. "That's how you might feel about me, but I've just pointed out all the flaws that are there that could completely turn you off. But I know first hand that they don't."

"You're not - " I choked on the word " - fat."

"Neither are you."

I snorted. "You, my friend, are delusional."

"Rita Hayworth."

My eyebrow rose. "An interesting non-sequitur, but hardly relevant to our discussion -"

"Yes, she is. She's my favorite old Hollywood actress. I like all of them, really, but she has the same red-gold hair as you do, although hers was more wavy. And she had your build - although I don't think she was quite as well endowed as you are in certain areas that are of incredible interest to me." He ran a fingertip over each of my nipples, making me gasp, then let his hands drop to my bottom, which he cupped and squeezed with an appreciative growl. "You look like a _woman_ , not a stick. You look wonderfully female and feminine, even under the jeans and sweatshirts you prefer because you think they hide you but there's no mistaking who and what you are. Everything - and I do mean _everything_ \- about you brings me perilously close to losing complete control of myself every second that I'm with you."

I knew my face was glowing a bright, completely unbecoming red. "Stop," I breathed, my voice further constricted by embarrassment. "You shouldn't say things like that about me - "

In an instant, I found myself in the same nearly immobile position I'd been in before, on my back, hands above my head, legs forced apart by one of his, his big hand storming my privates, two fingers lodging themselves inside me, fucking me powerfully as he bore down on me from above, making my breath hitch in something that was very close to fear.

His liquid velvet voice was deceptively soft. "From now on, lovely, any time I compliment you on your appearance -" his eyes narrowed, and he corrected himself, "any time I compliment you _period_ \- the only acceptable answer that will keep you from a blistering is, 'Thank you, Sir.'" His head bent to suckle almost painfully hard at a bobbing nipple. "Am - I - making - myself - perfectly - clear?" he asked, emphasizing each word with a thrust of that hand that nearly lifted my hips off the bed each time.

My back arched of its own accord, my body overruled and overtaken by him, our eyes still locked because I couldn't seem to find the will to look away from him, I nodded, as close to obediently as I would probably ever get.

That was nowhere near enough for him. " _Say_ it," he ground out, not letting up with those fingers in the least, in fact he added the torture of the big, broad pad of his thumb, which had been dipped into my own honey then laid atop a distended clit that had been craving his touch since long before he'd left yesterday after caressing it so expertly.

And it wanted more - much, much more - of his attentions.

But in contrast to the way his fingers were pounding into me, his thumb was dragged - slow and deliberate - over me, top to bottom, then the reverse trip, only to immediately start over again

"Say it," he warned, "or I'll tease you for a week before I allow you to cum again. I'll keep you right at the edge every time I fuck you for my own pleasure - and I can promise you that that'll always be very, very frequently because I'll never get enough of you - but I won't allow you to find your release - with me or without me - for seven long, torturous days unless you _obey me_ now."

Fuck. Me.

Had he just said what I thought he said? A _week_?

I couldn't get the words out of me - or him into me - fast enough. "Thank you, Sir."

But when I was done he was shaking that ginger head of his. "Not acceptable. Again. You _know_ how I want you to say it."

He hadn't said I _how_ I had to say them, just _that_ I had to say them. So I had whispered them as quietly as I could, rebelling as much as I thought I could probably get away with, not really knowing how far I could push him - yet. "But I _said_ them," I whinged, my eyes slipping away from his, knowing I was testing him and his resolve.

I didn't like the way his face froze into a very stern expression as he removed his hand from me entirely, which prompted me to whimper very loudly at the loss.

Then he was suddenly above me, his overpowering presence holding my legs apart, my hands still gathered uselessly above my head as his travelled eagerly over every bit of me that it could reach, as if he wanted to brand me with his touch. I still tried to cringe away from him when he claimed areas of my body that I felt were ugly, but he anticipated my actions and wouldn't allow me to disrupt his path, groping and molesting me to his heart's content until he finally returned to my quim and literally held my body open for himself as I felt the broad head of his cock nudging against my entrance. Those stunning eyes sought mine seconds before he began to sink himself into me, hot and hard and powerful, forcing me to open around him, making my breath catch loudly at the size of his imposition, whimpering constantly at how I was struggling to adjust to him.

Every nerve in my body rioted at his blatant possession. I couldn't remain still beneath him - if my hands had been free they would have been pressing on his stomach, trying to wordlessly ask him to slow down, to ease back a bit, to give me some relief from his overwhelming presence within me which was only becoming more so as he inexorably filled all of me, until my hot, dripping wet glove was stretched over every last huge inch of him, every inch of me - not just there - but _all_ of me feeling utterly claimed by him.

He was so big, stretched out between my legs, his mere presence there making me feel physically vulnerable to him - and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was - he was all I could see, all I could feel, all I could think about. My body continued to spasm around him, which was at once both excruciatingly pleasant and skating even more dangerously along that sometimes blurry line between agony and ecstasy as I my breath hitched and I tried to pant through it until my uncomfortably imposed upon flesh could come to grips with what he was doing to it.

His lips sought my ear. "As I said before, you're _not_ in charge here. Now, do as you were told, my love, or things will go very badly for you indeed. Right now, I'd much rather make you scream in my arms from my cock plunging into you than from my palm connecting painfully with that delicious bum of yours."

What the fuck was it that he'd wanted me to do? the question flashed across my mind for a panicked second, and then I remembered. Flushing bright red again, trying to avoid his eyes as I did it, although his fingers caught my chin and I ended up doing it the way he wanted me to in more ways than one, I said, not very loudly but at a much more conversational volume than I had before "Thank you, Sir."

His smile was soft, if somewhat self-satisfied. "Very good. You'll want to remember that rule, sunshine, because I can promise that you won't like the consequences if you don't."

I wanted to frown fiercely up at him, to assert myself in the face of having been forced to submit to him, but he chose that moment to begin to move on and worse - within - me, and all conscious thought was immediately lost.

He took his time, withdrawing excruciatingly slowly then plunging back into me not much more quickly, increasing the pace of his rhythm only incrementally each time, and as I began to become more accustomed to his size I found myself wanting more from him than he was giving me, making me lift my hips to meet his thrusts, moaning and catching my breath every time I opened myself further to him, each time I surrendered myself more completely to him.

The first time I did it, his eyes widened and became even dramatically more unfocused than they had been and he actually lost his pace, remaining buried deeply within me for long beats as I - consciously and unconsciously - pulsed around him, gripping him tightly.

"Fuck, stop that or I'll -"

It was my turn to grin evilly at him, teasing "Now who's in control?"

With that I saw a perfectly focused determination return to his expression as he reached down between us to press that demanding thumb over my clit again.

Seconds later, it most definitely _wasn't_ me, and he resumed an almost leisurely pace as I whimpered and moaned - and finally, begged and pleaded - as he drew my body taut as a bowstring beneath him, yearning, searching, seeking just the right touch to send me hurtling into oblivion.

And then he stopped, and I nearly roared in frustration.

He almost smiled, but instead stared down at me and said, "I love you."

Tears immediately began to seep out from the corners of my eyes at his open, sincere, heartfelt tone, and I could see that his eyes were wet with emotion, too.

Feeling suddenly very shy, considering our positions, I bit my lip in hesitation, then said what had been on my mind since I met him.

"I love you, too, Tom."

The smile that he beamed down on me made me feel it from him more acutely than almost anything else he could have done.

Almost.

Then he began to rock firmly against me, which also dragged his thumb up and over me relentlessly.

"You can hold back, you know," he murmured to me as he decorated my face with butterfly kisses. "Relax - like Fred. I want this to last forever."

He was paraphrasing what I'd said to him that first night in the pantry.

"If I wait I know I'll die from it," I whispered, completely unable to draw a full breath.

He shook his head firmly. "I'd never let you go. Try it with me. Hold back as long as you can. I wonder which one of us can last the longest . . . "

He could.

I didn't even _want_ to win that contest.

He had mastered me so well that I didn't know which way was up. I could barely begin to reign myself in, and I really only lasted another few minutes.

"Tom - Tom - please - I can't - I can't -" I didn't want to disappoint him by caving so easily.

And he seemed to know exactly what I meant by my incoherent babbling.

"Shhh, baby. No worries at all," he whispered softly. "I just wanted it to be as good as it possibly could for you. Let it happen. I cannot wait to see you writhing uncontrollably beneath me -"

And then I was - only I was moaning very loudly, too, bucking up against him as he left his thumb right where it had been, lessening the pressure just a bit, but his movements continued to rasp it over me, eking every bit of pleasure from me as my neck arched and my toes curled and my mind became a complete and utter blank.

He quickly leaned down to smother my cries with his kisses, and my violent completion spurred his own seconds later when he began to move much more roughly, which sent me into a second, violent peak as he slammed himself into me, straining over me, every muscle in his body growing taut as he growled low in his throat and gave up the fight, splashing himself inside me, teeth clenched, breath hissing out between them in huge puffs.

We were both dragging great gulps of air into our lungs for the longest time after that, him collapsing down heavily on top of me, his face buried in the curve of my neck.

I tugged experimentally at my wrists and he let them go, and I could no more resist the temptation to touch him than I could have decided not to take my next breath. My palms itched to feel his skin. They landed on his back and moved everywhere from there that they could reach, up over his shoulders, down to shyly explore the curves of his perfect behind and beyond to those powerful thighs and up to his muscular arms, finally to his face as he was barely able to raise himself up on his elbows to look down at me.

My fingertips explored his face gently, reverently. He closed his eyes on a sigh as I brushed the sides of my thumbs softly over his cheekbones, then that darker area beneath his eyes that I knew I had contributed to, across the impossibly thick field of lashes to brush carefully over his eyelids, tracing his eyebrows then meeting at his forehead and surrendering to the urge I'd been denying myself - delving into his hair to bring his lips down to mine.

He remained docile and quiet through it all, letting me touch him - enjoying the hell out of it, if any of the quiet whimpers he emitted throughout my little exploration were anything to go by.

He kissed me deeply, with oceans of emotion behind it, but I couldn't respond in kind because I was crying much too hard. Tom rolled off me and gathered me into his arms, holding me against his chest as I sobbed my heart out.

He pulled a bit away from me and went through the usual litany of questions a man asks when the woman he loves begins to sob inconsolably after they'd made love. "Did I hurt you?"

I shook my head.

"Are you sick?"

More shaking.

"Are you hurting?"

No.

Then he came to his senses. "Do you just want me to just shut the fuck up and hold you while you cry?"

I hurled myself into his arms and he - bless him - did just exactly that, holding me extra tight, rubbing my back, murmuring wordless but nonetheless reassuring nothings until I calmed within his arms.

"Sorry," I muttered, thoroughly embarrassed by my outburst, as I tried to move away.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, tightening his arms around me. "And why would you think you had to apologize to me?"

"Sorry," I mumbled again where my face was buried against his neck.

"Stop."

"Yes, Sir."

It just slipped out, I swear.

But he enjoyed it entirely too much, apparently, chuckling softly. "Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to make love again?" He hinted at his own preference by waggling his already full mast self against me, and I had to laugh.

Shrugging, I answered, "The sex was phenomenal, by the way, but that wasn't why I was crying."

"No?" he asked, matter of factly, as if every woman he made love with burst into tears afterwards.

"No. I'm just feeling really overwhelmed. I - I never planned for this . . . eventuality. You're supposed to be long gone by now, and I'm supposed to be alone trying to pick up the pieces."

His lips sought and found every freckle on my face, kissing some softly and almost seriously, and smacking others loudly to get me to giggle.

Tom brought the backs of my hands to his lips. "Believe me, that was never going to happen."

I raised an eyebrow. "That's what _you_ thought, anyway. That's not how I saw it, though. I figured you'd take one look at my hideous, naked body -"

I didn't even get to finish the sentence. He sat up, propped himself against the headboard, then used his hold on my wrist to draw me gently over his lap.

I was so fixated on explaining to him why I hadn't expected to make love with him that I barely noticed my position - until he brought his hand down on my bare, defenseless butt cheek.

"YEOW! What the fuck was that for?" I tried to struggle off his lap, but quickly found there was no way out.

His eyebrow rose into his hairline as I looked back at him. "You didn't think I meant it when I said I was going to spank you if I caught you saying negative things about yourself?"

"But - OW! FUCK! Cut that out! It stings!"

"It would behoove you to learn quickly that I don't say things I don't mean. And I won't make rules for you that I don't intend to enforce, my love."

He was emphasizing different words with sharp smacks. "Yes, but could you enforce them a little more gently -"

After he'd landed the hardest swat so far, he replied calmly, "No. That's not how this works. It's not going to be much of a deterrent if it's pleasant." His tone grew thoughtful. "I believe I said something about you not being able to sit for a month if you said something disparaging about your beautiful self . . . "

Five more swats were delivered in the same powerful, butt singeing manner.

A _month_?! I didn't even want to consider what a spanking like that might feel like!

"Fuck me!"

"Later, after your spanking. _If_ I think you've taken it well."

Dear God! What was my life going to be like with this man if he spanked me like this now?

I already knew the answer - it was going to be pure, unadulterated Heaven, and I resolved to do my best not to question one second of my good fortune. I was just going to be unendingly thankful for the love of one Thomas William Hiddleston - no matter how much it sometime hurt.


End file.
